Fairness Doctrine

The fairness doctrine was formalized as policy in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees. After a controversial 40-year history marked by challenges to its constitutionality and problematic enforcement, the policy was repealed in 1987. Calls for reinstatement of the fairness doctrine cause it to remain a politically charged issue today.

The doctrine specified that, because the airwaves are a “scarce” public resource (there are a finite number of frequencies available in any geographic market), broadcast stations act as trustees of this public resource and must (1) present adequate coverage of controversial issues of public importance and (2) provide content reflecting opposing views on these issues. Broadcasters were required to meet this obligation at their own expense if sponsorship was unavailable.

When the fairness doctrine was developed, most communities had access to only a small number of broadcast outlets. The doctrine addressed concerns about placing such concentrated power in just a few broadcasters' hands. Although it was intended to ensure freedom of speech, the doctrine was the focus of multiple legal challenges that claimed it violated broadcasters' First Amendment rights. In its most significant constitutional challenge, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the FCC to enforce the fairness doctrine in areas where public access to broadcast channels was limited.

The fairness doctrine did not require stations to provide equal time to opposing viewpoints, only reasonable opportunities for opposing viewpoints to be expressed. Broadcasters could present opposing views in any way they chose; they were not required to put advocates for those views on the air. Content within individual programs did not have to be balanced, so long as the station's overall content reflected opposing views.

The most severe penalty for violation of the fairness doctrine was revocation of a station's broadcast license, effectively putting the station out of business. Although every year the FCC received hundreds of thousands of complaints about potential violations, most were dismissed on procedural grounds for failure to meet high standards of proof. Complaints that survived the vetting process were sent to the broadcast stations, which were required to respond to the FCC. Broadcasters' defenses often characterized the issues as not of public importance. Because stations were allowed to determine what issues of concern were important to cover in their communities, only once did the FCC find that a station was in violation of the first requirement of the fairness doctrine, to devote adequate coverage to issues of public concern (Rep. Patsy Mink, 59 F.C.C. 2d 987, 37 R. R. 2d 744, 1974). In most cases, where the broadcaster was found to have violated the second requirement, to provide coverage of opposing views, the station was simply told to present additional content reflecting the slighted position. In the doctrine's 40-year [Page 88]history, only one broadcast station ever lost its license for failing to provide coverage of opposing views. However, the penalty in this case might have been due to the fact that the licensee, Brandywine-Main Line Radio, misrepresented facts to the FCC.

...